Orbiter 2010:Corot

COROT (COnvection ROtation and planetary Transits) is a space mission led by the French Space Agency (CNES) in conjunction with the European Space Agency (ESA) and other international partners. The mission's two objectives are to search for extrasolar planets with short orbital periods, particularly those of large terrestrial size, and to perform asteroseismology by measuring solar-like oscillations in stars. It was launched at 14:28:00 UTC on 27 December 2006, atop a Soyuz 2.1b carrier rocket. COROT subsequently reported first light on 18 January 2007. COROT is the first spacecraft dedicated to extrasolar planet detection. It detected its first extrasolar planet, COROT-1b, in May 2007. Mission flight operations were originally scheduled to end 2.5 years from launch but apparently flight operations were extended to January, 2010 and then to 2013. Over its planned 2½ year mission it will observe perpendicular to its orbital plane, meaning there will be no Earth occultations, allowing 150 days of continuous observation. During the northern summer it will observe in an area around Serpens Cauda and during the winter it will observe in Monoceros. During the remaining 30 days between the two main observation periods, COROT will observe 5 other patches of sky. Four fixed areas of the sky have been identified for study: * LRa01 in the constellation of Monoceros * LRc01 in the constellation of Aquila * SRc01 in the constellation of Serpens Cauda * IRa01 in the constellation of Monoceros

The probe will monitor the brightness of stars, watching for the slight dimming that happens in regular intervals when planets transit their primary sun. COROT will be sensitive enough to detect rocky planets several times larger than Earth; it is also expected to discover new gas giants, which currently comprise almost all of the known extrasolar planets.[10]

COROT will also undertake asteroseismology. It can detect luminosity variations associated with acoustic pulsations of stars. This phenomenon allows calculation of a star's precise mass, age and chemical composition and will aid in comparisons between the sun and other stars. In each field of view there will be one main target star for the asteroseismology as well as up to nine other targets. Simultaneously, it will be recording the brightness of 12,000 stars brighter than apparent magnitude 15.5 for the extrasolar planet study. It is expected that a few dozen planets will be found as a result of this project. The first scientific observation campaign started on 3 February 2007. Information provided by Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COROT

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Film & Animation

Tags:

• ESA
• telescope
• planet_hunter
• space
• satellite